Lincoln County opposes Cibola grazing ban

One-year ban on cattle grazing on the Cibola irks county commissioners

By Dianne Stallings

dstallings@ruidosonews.com @RuidosoNews on Twitter

Posted:
08/22/2013 05:23:22 PM MDT

Lincoln County commissioners Tuesday expressed their disagreement with the decision of the Cibola National Forest district ranger to ban cattle grazing for one year on two portions of the Cibola National Forest.

Commissioner Preston Stone said he doubted the validity of the science used by Karen Lessard, who heads the Mountainair District of the national forest. A portion of the forest falls within Lincoln County. The board approved a resolution opposing the blanket ban on cattle grazing in the Mountainair and Gallinas Mountain areas.

Stone and Chairman Jackie Powell pounded Lessard, accusing her of not sufficiently involving the permit holder for the grazing allotments in the decision.

Beginning her comments with appreciation for the management of the Lincoln National Forest, Powell said, "My family was running cattle when all there was basically was Fort Stanton and there was no Ruidoso, no Forest Service to tell them what to do. They had to do it on their own. I disagree with broad-spread science in a white book applied to every forest in the nation. I respect you're from (an old farming family in) Maine, but there are some families that have been here a long time, who understand New Mexico better than you do and I think they need to be taken into consideration. Maybe they do not have book learning or college, but they have common sense.

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"This is not the first drought this area has gone through. New Mexico is tough, the pasture is tough and the ranchers who have come through for 250 years are tough. (A Corona rancher who holds a permit) already cut his cattle on his own. No one had to tell him. They ride their pastures everyday.

Totally removing everything would never fit in New Mexico. They would make adjustments as they could, down to three cows if had to, to do the best."

Ranchers don't receive weekly paychecks, she said. They may see a payoff just once a year. "And we have to look way down the road."

Unfortunately, ranchers were restricted for years from removing pinyon-juniper that took over and destroyed pastures, Powell said.

"That was Forest Service science and it was wrong," she said. "The spotted owl Forest Service science was wrong. We need to get back to where it is right. Listening to those who know the land more and the books less would help.

"If you won't listen, I don't know how much more we could sit here and argue back and forth. You're wrong, and it's not right to do the people of New Mexico like this, especially those here since the 1920s trying to make it. They need to be worked with."

Lessard explains the science

"The Manzano Mountain Division, north and east of Mountainair, and the Gallinas Division have been for the past three years in drought," Lessard told commissioners. "Two years were termed extreme drought and this year was termed exceptional, which is the worst. I don't think anyone could doubt that, seeing how things looked this spring. It's been a blessing to have the monsoons return. They were not in the Gallinas unit for the previous two years. A drought decision is based on long-term condition. It's not 'We got the monsoons, great. We can get on with grazing.'"

She needs to look at a full year cycle of rain, seeds and forage growing, she said.

"We've been monitoring for the last three years how the seeds have been putting out. There are a number of places this year that we have seen seed heads develop, but we are not seeing the leaf structure underneath them," she said. "The grass is in a hurry to put some seed into the ground. If we were to allow grazing to start right now, it certainly would be good for the cattle and certainly would be good for the permittees, but it would not serve the land or the long-term health of the grazing allotments. We had no growth at all of any consequence during the spring. We had no snow pack of any consequence. We need to have that spring growth again. If we could have that spring growth like the growth we are having now, it would not end the drought, but certainly would indicate things are getting better."

Her decision was to remove cattle for at least one year to give the cycle a chance to come back, Lessard said.

"When the grass grows and puts out the seed, but not the leaves, we do not get the root structure. The leaves are where photosynthesis happens and that is how the root structure gets built. Without that root structure, if the cattle are back out in the late spring and there is not enough root structure and there is a dry spring, we could lose it all. I've talked to people who lived through the 1950s (drought) and I researched droughts in the 50s and the 30s, and there were times when the monsoons have come and it was beautiful like it is now, but if it is followed by a dry winter and we graze this summer, we're shot. We were teetering on the brink before the rains came. We started to see dunes in places in the Gallinas that hadn't seen them since the 1930s. The pinyons in the Manzanos have become so stressed that the bark beetles have moved in. The land around south Mountainair and into the Manzanos, we are losing not only our pinyon but our Ponderosa pine are starting to show the stress. This shows the long-term drought has weakened the trees for the beetles to move in."

She has no intention of closing either of her divisions to grazing permanently, she assured commissioners.

"Good grazing lands for the most part were working well and we were looking at increasing allotments before the drought cycle started," Lessard said. "We were looking at bringing wells back up to date and into service. This is one of the range management options we can use as part of a drought strategy." All the information is contained in the grazing permittees' permits, manual and handbooks, she said.

"The decision was not made in a vacuum," she said. "I talked to range specialists. I have the best permittee families who really care. When I got here 6 1/2 years ago, I didn't know much about grazing at all. Now I understand how it affects the economy and for many of these families, their income. This is not a decision made lightly. We have been talking the last two years with permittees, giving them a heads up about they might want to consider reducing their herds. Drought is climate, not weather. The rain is weather. I have to look at the long-term to keep grazing out here for the future generations. Unfortunately, this one year we need to take a rest."

She told Stone that permittees monitor the land and take photographs of its condition, reporting each year. She claimed she also has covered most of the allotments by vehicle, horse or on foot.

"There are some green spots around the springs, but it is not a site specific decision," Lessard said. "It is an overall decision, You can't make cattle stay in one place."

Stone said he was amazed when he heard about the decision.

"Our family is sixth generation. We dealt with the drought in 30s, 40s, 50s, 70s and 1996 and 2000." he said. "The thing that always amazed me was that any government agency doesn't understand people in agriculture are stewards of the land, the conservationists, and we know better than anyone, because this is our lives. This is where we live and where our families will continue to be raised."

Studies done properly show that grazing can be beneficial to the land, he contended. The land has a species of early season grasses and another of monsoon grasses, he said.

"We're going through the worst drought ever, the experts say," Stone said. "Livestock numbers are the lowest they've ever been. People don't understand that if everything turned lush today, there are not enough cattle numbers to feed the people in the world, who need to be fed with meat. The livestock industry isn't only trying to survive as an agricultural industry, we're trying to supply food to the world. The bottom line is that 95 percent to 98 percent of the people in agriculture all their lives will not abuse the land. We live there.

"I do not believe that your analysis is correct, because I have observed from here to Roswell and to Santa Fe. Two months ago I would have told you the turf was dead. Today I see blue grama already 22 inches to 30 inches tall and seeding out, blue and black grama seeding out. You know God's creation is perfect. Whether we as human beings think we know more about mother nature than anyone else, we don't. I believe the monsoons have been adequate enough. I believe you are wrong.

"I do not believe what you are doing is best for the land, and it's not best for the people who are your permittees. You have people who are trying to survive in an industry where we are dealt a bad card everyday we wake up. And people do not understand what it consists of for agriculture to survive on a seven-day basis, 365 days out of the year."

Lessard said from satellite shots she can see that rain has been spotty. Unfortunately, the soil hardens and when the rain falls fast, it also runs off quickly, she said.

"If you've got flatlands, it will hold water longer. I'm dealing mostly with mountains," she said. "I might get 8 inches of rain and half an inch will soak in. I'm required by Congress to use the best available science to make my decisions. That's what I've done. I have full respect for your position. I come from farming and fishing family in Maine that dates back to the 1600s."

A personal view

Rand Perkins, a permit holder from Corona told Lessard, "I think people need to realize the Forest Service and permittees are on the same side and have the goal of protecting the land. My problem with the decision is that we didn't need to have a blanket removal. We feel like when you have seed growing, you need livestock there to scatter that seed and break up the surface. It benefits the land. We all reduced our herds, but a blanket removal really hurt everyone economically."

He asked for a 30-day extension to give the summer monsoon a chance to produce forage and to find an alternate location, but the request was denied, Perkins said. "I feel we were not listened to enough and were not a part of the decision."

Lessard repeated that her view is long-term and she will be looking for a good snowpack to soak into the ground. "The seed is out there, but we need to let it grow and rest and we will be out there again next spring," she said. "If it is dry, we will be waiting."

Perkins said his allotment allowed 100 head of cattle, but he was running about 50. He had to sell the herd, because he had no place to put them.

"We've been building this herd of cattle since 1927," he said. "You don't buy cattle to replace cattle. They have to acclimate and adapt to land (through time and breeding).

Rancher Loretta Sanchez asked Lessard if with all the cattle gone, the Forest Service will step up and cut more trees to improve forest health.

"I've been after that for years and years to remove and improve the forest," she said.

Lessard replied that the five-year plan for the Manzanos includes some tree cutting, but no money is available right now to do a project and she has to follow the public process and procedures.

"You can still cut (the pinyon juniper) for fence posts and personal firewood permits," she said. "With the die-off, I am using that tool with all the permittees."

Stone receive commission support to send a letter opposing Lessard's one-year cattle ban to the county's Congressional delegation, as well as the resolution to the Forest Service.

Commissioner Kathryn Minter said the resolution sounded "a little harsh" and that Lessard was doing her job. Her hands are tied by the Forest Service policies, which need to be changed, she said. Multiple uses are part of the forest management plan, she said.

"I appreciate what ranchers have done and do think they are the best stewards of land," she said, adding that she backed sending a letter, "because they make the policies the managers have to follow."

"Harsh doesn't even define the effect on ranchers," Stone told Minter. "You don't understand the number of generations it takes to develop a seed stock (of cattle) and when permittees have to remove and liquidate seed stock, you're talking generations of breeding and acclimation. Buying a new cow, it will not be the quality you have built on for generations. It takes three years to acclimate and the rancher has to deal with the animal and her stress for three years and then at that point, the animal will start to be productive and cost worthy. Harsh? This resolution can't touch the harshness being done to the 19 permittees in this district."